Not that the hip hop artist in question shall give a rat's ass whether you do or not. Cause they mainly don't... but let's see:

Is it the lyricism? Cause many complain about the absence of subtle lyricism in hip hop records today, with the exception of artists like Kendrick Lamar, Earl Sweatshirt, Crooked, and probably J Cole.

Is it the ability to self-produce a record or at least partake in the recording process (engineering, producing, makin beats...)?

Is it the ability to profoundly touch you and leave a certain "wave" of feelings and sensations? That doesn't necessairly rely on heavy lyrics or authentic music, I know guys that cry when they listen to Eminem rapping about killin his ex-wife cause "he reflects anger and psychological issues, shit they can relate to" therefore they regard Eminem a great hip hop artist who can IMPRESS them over and over.

What is it, then, if it's not that or that?

x

[Edited 2/20/16 8:33am]

Two things:

1) Lyrics that are more meaningful or can lift people, rather than the same old sex-drugs-violence theme.

2) Originality, as in not dependent on features or heavy sampling. Take away the sampling of extremely popular older songs and many hip hop "hits" would have flopped.

-Whether there is an educational component or storytelling component to it

-Creative composition, whether it's original beats or an innovative way of sampling rather than just looping

-Flow of skills, vocal tone, lyrics

-Authenticity

-Unapologetic in taking risks if it's for a greater purpose

-Unafraid to musically expand their horizons

[Edited 2/20/16 8:10am]

Creating a new sound, lyrical flow, creativity, ability to make "silly" music as well as "serious" stuff. I think the best at it so far has been 2Pac.

The execution of proper English so that one can actually derive SOME form of intelligence from the lyrical content. Is it no WONDER the youth of today are bordering on illiterate from all the lazy spelling, etc...MY take, of course, but I've already mastered my native language, so...take it 4 what it's worth. Not 2 mention, no one was getting murdered in "Rapper's Delight" when "the chicken tasted like wood." Peace.

Pokeno4Money said:

Two things:

1) Lyrics that are more meaningful or can lift people, rather than the same old sex-drugs-violence theme.

2) Originality, as in not dependent on features or heavy sampling. Take away the sampling of extremely popular older songs and many hip hop "hits" would have flopped.

SO AGREE with u! The Old School had #1 hits with much of what's been or is BEING sampled today in Rap and it's not only a slap in the face to the vets who crafted their music with so much love and hard work, but 2 have parts of said music yelled over with new lyrics SUNG OVER it, is both insulting and offensive 2 me. I can't speak 4 the original artists though. They may like it. I DON'T.

whitechocolatebrotha said:

The execution of proper English so that one can actually derive SOME form of intelligence from the lyrical content. Is it no WONDER the youth of today are bordering on illiterate from all the lazy spelling, etc...MY take, of course, but I've already mastered my native language, so...take it 4 what it's worth. Not 2 mention, no one was getting murdered in "Rapper's Delight" when "the chicken tasted like wood." Peace.

It's not the job of music to teach anything, that has more to do with the schools. If the schools aren't teaching and just passing students to meet a quota, then that's the fault of the school administration.

Positive messages without using profanity to prove a point is a plus..

Hip Hop artist should be proud of their work way passed their music career.

some of them, because of wise choices, can pass their wisdom to their children/ grandchildren..

But sad to say, messages today are about...smoking weed, 'bitches' hoes,money, money , money,

cars and more cars, guns, shoes, clothes, sex and more sex and mix it with profanity, profanity, and more profanity,crime, i'm better than you -lyrics, blah-blah-blah, and crazy noises .

You guys need to stop thinking that rap music "died" in a certain era. Yes, trap music has taken over but thankfully there is still some good stuff being made....

[Edited 2/20/16 19:12pm]

I also agree about Kendrick. The first time I heard "If These Walls" I was blown away. The music was great..sounded like Micheal or P could have sang over it. My fave song from 2015..And Kendrick's delivery is cool too.

SPYZFAN1 said:

I also agree about Kendrick. The first time I heard "If These Walls" I was blown away. The music was great..sounded like Micheal or P could have sang over it. My fave song from 2015..And Kendrick's delivery is cool too.

Yeah that's a good one and so is The Blacker the Berry.

- General weirdness and willingness to push boundries

- Uplifting lyrics

- A great beat and flow


There's room for every style. Rap would be boring if everybody was doing the same thing and chasing the same trends.

I used to be a huge hip hop fan, and I still consider myself a fan of good hip hop. The problem is lack of quality. There's just toooooo many rappers. Everyone can be a rapper, but everyone can't be a good rapper. There's tons of impressive rappers when it comes to rhythm and technique in the underground. But they're also sounding the same most of the time. They follow the same trends and rules almost all the time.

I remember when I used to listen to X-zibit, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop etc when I was like 13-14 years old. It appealed to me when I was a teenager. However it wasn't before I heard OutKast I really got into hip hop. I felt like I truly heard some avant garde shit that I didn't think was even possible in rap back then. Later I started digging more into the underground, and found alot of great stuff.

Good lyrics
Original and steady style/flow
Exciting instrumentals that does more than the ordinary hip hop usually does (Kendrick Lamar among new artists). I will sometimes just enjoy a pretty damn predictable boop bap style though. It serves different purposes. The one would not be anything without the other.

But sometimes I love me some ignorant arrogant shit too. It all depends how it's done. Sometimes the ignorant shit is kinda satire, and sometimes it's both. Some rappers show love for horrible cliches in a way that it actually becomes freakin good. Kanye does that to me often. He'll embrace the most publicly known as horrible parts of hip hop, and flip it into something cool.

Replica said:

I used to be a huge hip hop fan, and I still consider myself a fan of good hip hop. The problem is lack of quality. There's just toooooo many rappers. Everyone can be a rapper, but everyone can't be a good rapper. There's tons of impressive rappers when it comes to rhythm and technique in the underground. But they're also sounding the same most of the time. They follow the same trends and rules almost all the time.

I remember when I used to listen to X-zibit, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop etc when I was like 13-14 years old. It appealed to me when I was a teenager. However it wasn't before I heard OutKast I really got into hip hop. I felt like I truly heard some avant garde shit that I didn't think was even possible in rap back then. Later I started digging more into the underground, and found alot of great stuff.

Good lyrics
Original and steady style/flow
Exciting instrumentals that does more than the ordinary hip hop usually does (Kendrick Lamar among new artists). I will sometimes just enjoy a pretty damn predictable boop bap style though. It serves different purposes. The one would not be anything without the other.

But sometimes I love me some ignorant arrogant shit too. It all depends how it's done. Sometimes the ignorant shit is kinda satire, and sometimes it's both. Some rappers show love for horrible cliches in a way that it actually becomes freakin good. Kanye does that to me often. He'll embrace the most publicly known as horrible parts of hip hop, and flip it into something cool.

I think for those of us who remember 90s rappers I guess we've been listening to rap music a lot longer than the younger kids today who listen to rap who may have only remembered the past ten years of rap. I guess it's like we're so used to rap changing directions every few years and given that it's basically been in the same holding pattern for the past eight years or so that we're getting bored with it I like Kendrick Lamar because he's not just doing the same old beats with the same old crap (like someone like Future for example).

EmmaMcG said:

It's already been touched on a few times already in this thread but I would agree that it's the lyrics that are most important in rap music. Obviously it needs a good beat behind it to drive the song but it's the message the rapper is trying to convey that captures my interest. I hate songs that serve no purpose other than to contribute to a negative stereotype of "blacks in the hood". Outkast, A Tribe Called Quest, Common, Q-Tip and The Roots are my favourites.

You have great taste girl I think you may have mentioned Mos Def as one of your favorites before right? If not, let me introduce you to Mos Def He's now "Yasiin Bey"

SeventeenDayze said:

Pokeno4Money said:

Two things:

1) Lyrics that are more meaningful or can lift people, rather than the same old sex-drugs-violence theme.

2) Originality, as in not dependent on features or heavy sampling. Take away the sampling of extremely popular older songs and many hip hop "hits" would have flopped.

I STRONGLY disagree with the second point.

Sampling IS hip hop. It's been like this since the very beginnings and hopefully it will stay that way forever

Public Enemy is my favorite hip hop group and what they did is basically a collage of samples in every damn song, in order to create a massively noisy beat that could only sound awesome if Chuck D and Flavor Flav were rapping on it

Through ther samples they paid tons of respect to funk legends like P-Funk, Sly and James Brown. The Bomb Squad (their production team) were extremely creative and took sampling and beat-making to new heights

I know serious hip-hop heads don't tend to give him any credit, but Mackelmore's new album just appeared on Tidal so I've been streaming parts of it and it has some of the best lyrics / story telling I've heard in a long time.

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For me, how much I get into something depends on the combination of lyrical content, delivery, originality, and just overall song composition.

Back in the days HipHop artists would either blatantly steal whole melodies or the full instrumental version of a hit song and just rap over it (and I was too young to know better), or they would have their own music, their own beats and melodies, which I liked a lot. Groups such as Whodini had big hits, and they used their own music (Friends, One Love, Escape, Growing Up, Life is Like a Dance).

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What I like about good rappers is :

- good lyrics

- good puns, punchlines and wordplay

-humor (Snoop Dogg is hilarious, and so was Biggie )

- deep lyrics (Nas, some old school Ice-T songs such as Squeeze the Trigger and 6NthaMornin´, Pain, and most of the fun stuff he did with the Zulu Kings).

- creative , over the top rhymes (like some very oldschool Melle Mel).

- a unique flow (Rakim, Biggie)

- great beats (J Dilla, DJ Premier)

- great storytelling (Ice-T, Ice Cube, Nas)

- conscious lyrics, smart lyrics, lyrics to make you think twice (KRS One, Mos Def AKA Yassin Bey)

- all of the above and being charismatic (Masta Ace...what a great live MC...a true MC..true rapper...)

I don't think production can get any better than J Dilla as far as source material choice, to drums, to chopping technique. He's been gone from the Earth for ten years, and still no one comes close. I do still like Madlib, Kanye West, and The Alchemist.

It seems like today's producers just want the same 808 kit (no other drum machines) and ambient Enya or John Carpenter synths. It's not moving me, and I only KINDA liked it when Three 6 Mafia did it in the 1990s, but that's all I hear these days.


As far as lyrics, my favorite rappers are still the heydays Big Daddy Kane, KRS One, Rakim, Chuck D (in his prime), and The Notorious B.I.G. I realize that rap has changed and is no longer about bars, but if the emphasis is on STYLE these days... most of these new rappers sound too alike in style to be worth noting.

Cinny said:

I don't think production can get any better than J Dilla as far as source material choice, to drums, to chopping technique. He's been gone from the Earth for ten years, and still no one comes close. I do still like Madlib, Kanye West, and The Alchemist.

It seems like today's producers just want the same 808 kit (no other drum machines) and ambient Enya or John Carpenter synths. It's not moving me, and I only KINDA liked it when Three 6 Mafia did it in the 1990s, but that's all I hear these days.


As far as lyrics, my favorite rappers are still the heydays Big Daddy Kane, KRS One, Rakim, Chuck D (in his prime), and The Notorious B.I.G. I realize that rap has changed and is no longer about bars, but if the emphasis is on STYLE these days... most of these new rappers sound too alike in style to be worth noting.

You should check out Brenk Sinatra if you haven´t already. He´s a young and upcoming DJ and producer from Vienna (Brankovic Jordanovic, probably of Croatian descent)...he grew up listening to Westcoast HipHop, his sound is a little bit reminiscent of DamFunk´s sound but with a little bit more of a HipHop/G-Funk twist instead of mainly Funk.

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He recently worked with MC Eiht from CMW, and he put his mixtape "Midnite Ride" up on Youtube and it´s also available on his website. Or check out his Gentle Giant Mixtape or his collabo album project S3 (Super Soul Shit) with American singer and trumpet player Miles Bonny.

.

I´m sure you´ll like him if you like Dilla.

I know I do.

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PS: The second mixtape´s first song is off of his album he did with Miles Bonny. The song is called 10 Minutes. Miles may not be the best singer on earth but I really like his songs. Then again, I also like Jhene Aiko so I am not really looking for perfectionism and a great voice in a singer. It helps...but most of the time I´m all about the vibe and feel of a song.

Check it out, I´m sure you´ll like his production skills.

The thing is... I don't really check for instrumental albums from DJ producers like that. Ironic considering I used to make them.

Where are the Gang Starrs? the Pete Rock AND CL SMOOTHS?

Kendrick Lamar and J.Cole are the closest thing to the type of lyricists I enjoy, and even though they don't have beats like trap/Three 6 Mafia shit, the production is still not really what I'm checking for.

A mix of humoristic material and serious material.

Beats that have very intricate sounds and or samples... Kanyes earlier beats for example really set the tone of what hip hop should sound like

Lyrics and production but they use so much slang that i do not understand.